Not many cars pass through Guynemer Street. It runs straight down the hill, and splits left into a cul-de-sac with five houses, straight down to a dead end in front of her apartment residence, and right, after a row of 8 houses on each side, also a cul-de-sac.
She usually only sees four cars in the morning. Everyone else takes the bus. She does see one boy, around twelve, rush down the hill on a bike every morning, and a few moments later, another one, about nine, on a scooter.
There are, in fact, so little cars that the few people walking to or from the bust stop march right down the middle of the street.
She starts walking up the hill, on time. Juniper stops as she looks down and sighs. It's another snail. This one's the biggest she's seen so far, in fact, she asks herself if it may be the biggest she's ever seen, it moves quite quickly for a snail. She reminds herself that this is beside the point, that she's zoning out once again, that it's OK because the meds will only start taking their effect in about twenty more minutes, and bends over to pluck up the slimy thing by its shell. She walk back three steps to a small hedge next to the sidewalk, and sets the thing down in the dirt. She rubs the hand gel between her fingers with her chin tucked in, trying to avoid eye contact with an elderly woman looking down at her, even though she barely reaches her shoulder in height. Her head snaps up, as she hears the whir of a bike speeding freely down the road. She sidesteps back onto the safety of the sidewalk, and watches as the bike wheels pass quickly over the end of a glistening trail, cut short where its producer was snatched up and relocated; where the snail had just been, and would still be had she not moved it. Juniper looks up at the woman and raises an eyebrow in defiance.
See, I saved it. I did save it.
She looks at the time on her phone. She has two minutes left to be at the stop. Time has been wasted. She quickly jogs up to the landing on the hill, to catch it up, with a grin on her face. That small distraction from her morning routine was more than welcome.
YOU ARE READING
Diary of Good Deeds
De TodoBetween her family's flat and the bus stop is a seven minute walk up the hill on Guynemer Street. Every day she walks up to the stop, and every evening back down, home. She knows the hill by heart. She knows how far to run for each minute lost. Juni...
